MORE Star Wars???????

Off Topic
81

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I’m a huge Star Wars fan and all that, but REALLY??? George Lucas sold Lucasfilm, Ltd. for $4.05 billion and now motherfucking DISNEY is going to make Episodes 7, 8, 9? And then they plan on releasing another Star Wars film every few years, like James Bond or some shit.

George Lucas is the king of milking something for all it’s worth and then some. Whaddya guys think? Is there ANY way at all that these films will have any redeeming features? I thought Revenge of the Sith had its moments, but other than that Lucas has fucked up every single second of every single Star Wars film starting about halfway through Return of the Jedi when those goddamned Ewoks showed up.

They should have raped Leia, that little fucking tart.[/quote]

(*posting off the cuff without reading anything but the OP first, so my apologies if anything has been covered already)

I knew we could find common ground on something.

Biggest problem with episodes 1, 2 and 3 was, well, aside from the last 10 minutes or so of episode three, that they possessed NONE of the qualities that made 4, 5 and 6 so damned good. In particular, characterization, characterization, characterization.

I saw a terrific write-up by somebody on the interwebz somewhere about this glaring difference. The guy first asked a few people to describe certain characters like, for example, Han Solo (who shot Greedo first in the original!). Easily done, right? He’s a brave, rugged, go-it-alone type, a Don Juan with a mean narcissistic streak. He looks out for number one most of the time, but has a strong moral core that keeps him grounded, and is still willing to put his life on the line to save his friends.

Now try the same exercise with any given character from 1,2,or 3. Queen Amidala? She’s uhh…good with makeup and curlers? Any of the Jedi? I recall Annakin had good driving skills. Can you remember one real standout characteristic for any of them? Oh, yeah, there’s one character I could do that with: Jar Jar Binks puke.

Ugh. I have always been one of the hugest Star Wars fans imaginable. I STILL have almost every toy ever made, including the original large dolls (would love to get my hands on an original large IG-88 or the Boba Fett with the launching back rocket). I can only imagine that more bad is going to come from this. Whoever owns the rights to this should do the right thing and not ever sell them to anyone or make another movie again until they figure out how to resurrect Akira Kurosawa to do the direction.
[/quote]

I think this is the review you are talking about. I recommend watching the reviews for all 3 prequels, they are really good.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/[/quote]

Does Star Wars = Lord of the Rings in Space?

[/quote]

Not really. The OT and LOTR both follow the general template that work so well in the fantasy/sci-fi genre, but the specifics of the stories are mostly different. Plus, there is no incest in LOTR. You have the inexperienced, unprepared, and generally naive protagonist: Luke in Star Wars and Frodo in LOTR. Actually, all of the hobbit characters have these qualities, but Frodo is definitely the main protagonist. That protagonist is, usually accidentally, thrown into an overwhelming conflict against a massive evil force that he/she does not understand but, through a big heart and lots of courage, endeavors to resolve. They collect a group of more experienced comrades who help them achieve their goals, but ultimately the final resolution of the conflict is up to them. You look at most great sci-fi/fantasy story (Terminator, King Arthur, Flash Gordon, John Carter) and you will see a similar general outline.

There is a good reason this is such a successful plot device for stories like this. Characters like Luke and Frodo are fairly ordinary and thus relatable. It is hard to relate to a powerful wizard, a space monkey, a swashbuckling criminal, or a ranger that descends from kings and is nearly a hundred years old. We easily find these characters very interesting and care about to them to an extent, but not as much as a normal guy like Luke or Frodo. In a situation like LOTR or Star Wars, I would not be a Gandalf, Aragorn, Han, Chewie, or Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am not a great warrior, or royalty. I would be Frodo, or Luke. Watching them succeed in that situation implies that I may be able to as well, and thus I am much more invested in what happens to them more then any other character.

Now, I think that each of these stories work very well in their original medium. Star Wars were much better movies then LOTR, and LOTR were much better books then the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy. The reason for this is obvious: those were the media for which those stories were intended. In a book, it is good to have more diverging story lines that are interconnected in a fairly complex way. This prevents any one story line from getting stale and keeps the reader engaged. It is also great for character development. This does not transfer well to movies because of time constraints. Too many of the intricacies of LOTR had to, by necessity, be cut from the movies to prevent the movies from being over 10 hours long each. There were just too many story lines and chaacters that even with cutting out or glossing over a lot of material, it made for haphazard and hard to follow cinema.

The Star Wars trilogy, however, were written for the limited time frame involved with movies so it was understood from the beginning that the number of characters being developed and the total number of diverging story lines needed to be kept to a minimum, and the specific plot had to be much more condensed then what is more appropriate for a book. This allowed for a more detailed development of the protagonist and interesting side plots while still having a full resolution to the main conflict of the story. This also makes for fairly bad reading material. As a book, Star Wars is a little too simplistic and the characters are not nearly developed to the extent that they should be. In fact, if you look at the page count of the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy and the LOTR trilogy, I would bet that the page count of LOTR is at least double or triple that of Star Wars.

82

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I’m a huge Star Wars fan and all that, but REALLY??? George Lucas sold Lucasfilm, Ltd. for $4.05 billion and now motherfucking DISNEY is going to make Episodes 7, 8, 9? And then they plan on releasing another Star Wars film every few years, like James Bond or some shit.

George Lucas is the king of milking something for all it’s worth and then some. Whaddya guys think? Is there ANY way at all that these films will have any redeeming features? I thought Revenge of the Sith had its moments, but other than that Lucas has fucked up every single second of every single Star Wars film starting about halfway through Return of the Jedi when those goddamned Ewoks showed up.

They should have raped Leia, that little fucking tart.[/quote]

(*posting off the cuff without reading anything but the OP first, so my apologies if anything has been covered already)

I knew we could find common ground on something.

Biggest problem with episodes 1, 2 and 3 was, well, aside from the last 10 minutes or so of episode three, that they possessed NONE of the qualities that made 4, 5 and 6 so damned good. In particular, characterization, characterization, characterization.

I saw a terrific write-up by somebody on the interwebz somewhere about this glaring difference. The guy first asked a few people to describe certain characters like, for example, Han Solo (who shot Greedo first in the original!). Easily done, right? He’s a brave, rugged, go-it-alone type, a Don Juan with a mean narcissistic streak. He looks out for number one most of the time, but has a strong moral core that keeps him grounded, and is still willing to put his life on the line to save his friends.

Now try the same exercise with any given character from 1,2,or 3. Queen Amidala? She’s uhh…good with makeup and curlers? Any of the Jedi? I recall Annakin had good driving skills. Can you remember one real standout characteristic for any of them? Oh, yeah, there’s one character I could do that with: Jar Jar Binks puke.

Ugh. I have always been one of the hugest Star Wars fans imaginable. I STILL have almost every toy ever made, including the original large dolls (would love to get my hands on an original large IG-88 or the Boba Fett with the launching back rocket). I can only imagine that more bad is going to come from this. Whoever owns the rights to this should do the right thing and not ever sell them to anyone or make another movie again until they figure out how to resurrect Akira Kurosawa to do the direction.
[/quote]

I think this is the review you are talking about. I recommend watching the reviews for all 3 prequels, they are really good.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/[/quote]

Does Star Wars = Lord of the Rings in Space?

[/quote]

Not really. The OT and LOTR both follow the general template that work so well in the fantasy/sci-fi genre, but the specifics of the stories are mostly different. Plus, there is no incest in LOTR. You have the inexperienced, unprepared, and generally naive protagonist: Luke in Star Wars and Frodo in LOTR. Actually, all of the hobbit characters have these qualities, but Frodo is definitely the main protagonist. That protagonist is, usually accidentally, thrown into an overwhelming conflict against a massive evil force that he/she does not understand but, through a big heart and lots of courage, endeavors to resolve. They collect a group of more experienced comrades who help them achieve their goals, but ultimately the final resolution of the conflict is up to them. You look at most great sci-fi/fantasy story (Terminator, King Arthur, Flash Gordon, John Carter) and you will see a similar general outline.

There is a good reason this is such a successful plot device for stories like this. Characters like Luke and Frodo are fairly ordinary and thus relatable. It is hard to relate to a powerful wizard, a space monkey, a swashbuckling criminal, or a ranger that descends from kings and is nearly a hundred years old. We easily find these characters very interesting and care about to them to an extent, but not as much as a normal guy like Luke or Frodo. In a situation like LOTR or Star Wars, I would not be a Gandalf, Aragorn, Han, Chewie, or Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am not a great warrior, or royalty. I would be Frodo, or Luke. Watching them succeed in that situation implies that I may be able to as well, and thus I am much more invested in what happens to them more then any other character.

Now, I think that each of these stories work very well in their original medium. Star Wars were much better movies then LOTR, and LOTR were much better books then the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy. The reason for this is obvious: those were the media for which those stories were intended. In a book, it is good to have more diverging story lines that are interconnected in a fairly complex way. This prevents any one story line from getting stale and keeps the reader engaged. It is also great for character development. This does not transfer well to movies because of time constraints. Too many of the intricacies of LOTR had to, by necessity, be cut from the movies to prevent the movies from being over 10 hours long each. There were just too many story lines and chaacters that even with cutting out or glossing over a lot of material, it made for haphazard and hard to follow cinema.

The Star Wars trilogy, however, were written for the limited time frame involved with movies so it was understood from the beginning that the number of characters being developed and the total number of diverging story lines needed to be kept to a minimum, and the specific plot had to be much more condensed then what is more appropriate for a book. This allowed for a more detailed development of the protagonist and interesting side plots while still having a full resolution to the main conflict of the story. This also makes for fairly bad reading material. As a book, Star Wars is a little too simplistic and the characters are not nearly developed to the extent that they should be. In fact, if you look at the page count of the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy and the LOTR trilogy, I would bet that the page count of LOTR is at least double or triple that of Star Wars.

[/quote]

Actually, the LOTR fits perfectly with the heroes journey/ monomyth archetypes described by Joeseph Campbell and used by Lucas to create the OT. As a Professor of Philology, Tolkien wouldn’t have needed to refer to Campbell’s works, as his own research into stock characters in mythology would have lead him to the same conclusions.

You’ve already mentioned the parallels between Frodo and Luke, who are the lead characters in their respective stories: it is, after all, their journey that the story depends on. Both return from those journeys changed as individuals and were able to complete tasks more powerful allies could not.

Both are faced with a diabolical, corrupting influence: for Luke it is the lure of the Dark Side, and Frodo’s ‘Dark Side’ is represnted by the One Ring. In both stories the forces of evil are controlled by a dark lord and the force of good is aided by an elderly mentor with powerful magic at his command (note that both Gandalf and Obi-Wan die and are resurrected in more powerful forms).

Crucially, there’s no need to find an analog for every character for the stories to be analogous: for example, there is no ‘Space Gollum’ in Star Wars but both stories are still derived from the same storytelling tradition. You don’t have to have direct physical interpreatations of archetypes across different stories when it’s the prerogative of the writer to decide how to present the ideas in a story.

All characters exist to present an idea or attitude. Two characters inhabiting separate bodies can be depicted just as effectively as two states of mind in one body.

83

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
The prequels for whatever reason deviated entirely from the heroes journey stuff that he learned in his mythology classes into whatever the hell it turned into.
[/quote]

Three main reasons why the prequels failed:

By then George Lucas was rich enough to fund eps 1-3 without any outside help. That meant he could commit anything his imagination could dream up - good or bad - to film.

The original trilogy actually benefitted from financial and technological limitations: ILM had more creative input then and it showed.

Lucas writes the corniest dialogue (Harrison Ford once commented: “George, you can write this shit, but you can’t say it”) and he had a reputation for being a hands-off director, just letting his actors do whatever (not a great combo when acting against a green screen).

Tied into all this was Lucas’ baffling decision to direct and write all three movies. I still wonder how the prequels would’ve turned out if Spielberg had directed and Lucas just produced, Indy style.

Anakin wasn’t a hero so Lucas couldn’t follow Campbell’s template this time. Lucas tried his best though, but Anakin/ Vader ended up looking like Palpatine’s bitch, not a victim of fate.

There are more, but that’s enough to sink a franchise…[/quote]

Yeah, me and a buddy turned to each other after seeing the Lapti Nek dance scene in the Return of the Jedi Special Edition and later said “If that’s really Lucas’s vision then maybe we don’t want to see it”

It seems like Star Wars owed much of its success and appeal to people other than Lucas. Apparently Richard Chiew, the editor edited the fottage he had to a millimeter of its life to make the movie look good.[/quote]

He lost a lot of respect by releasing only the Special Editions on DVD. The untouched versions might not have been the movies HE wanted to be remembered for, but the people who made him rich enough to fuck with the OT in the first place deserve the choice.

Most of the truly iconic stuff in Star Wars are other people’s ideas, like the lightsaber sounds (a cheap effect made by waving a microphone across an amp to create feedback). Seems trivial, but hugely influential on pop culture.
[/quote]

He did release the untouched ones on DVD surprisingly. In 2004 I think. I bought them. They came with the Special Editions too, as in two discs for each movie.

84

[quote]roybot wrote:

Actually, the LOTR fits perfectly with the heroes journey/ monomyth archetypes described by Joeseph Campbell and used by Lucas to create the OT. [/quote]

I never said it didn’t. First, I don’t know who Joseph Campbell is, and second I said that the OT and LOTR followed the same general outline that many other sci-fi and fantasy stories follow, which is the same thing that you talked about. What makes them separate and unique is the specifics of each story, and in that way they are two different and original stories. If following the same general template made them the same, then there has not really been an original fantasy story in centuries, maybe longer.

85

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I’m a huge Star Wars fan and all that, but REALLY??? George Lucas sold Lucasfilm, Ltd. for $4.05 billion and now motherfucking DISNEY is going to make Episodes 7, 8, 9? And then they plan on releasing another Star Wars film every few years, like James Bond or some shit.

George Lucas is the king of milking something for all it’s worth and then some. Whaddya guys think? Is there ANY way at all that these films will have any redeeming features? I thought Revenge of the Sith had its moments, but other than that Lucas has fucked up every single second of every single Star Wars film starting about halfway through Return of the Jedi when those goddamned Ewoks showed up.

They should have raped Leia, that little fucking tart.[/quote]

(*posting off the cuff without reading anything but the OP first, so my apologies if anything has been covered already)

I knew we could find common ground on something.

Biggest problem with episodes 1, 2 and 3 was, well, aside from the last 10 minutes or so of episode three, that they possessed NONE of the qualities that made 4, 5 and 6 so damned good. In particular, characterization, characterization, characterization.

I saw a terrific write-up by somebody on the interwebz somewhere about this glaring difference. The guy first asked a few people to describe certain characters like, for example, Han Solo (who shot Greedo first in the original!). Easily done, right? He’s a brave, rugged, go-it-alone type, a Don Juan with a mean narcissistic streak. He looks out for number one most of the time, but has a strong moral core that keeps him grounded, and is still willing to put his life on the line to save his friends.

Now try the same exercise with any given character from 1,2,or 3. Queen Amidala? She’s uhh…good with makeup and curlers? Any of the Jedi? I recall Annakin had good driving skills. Can you remember one real standout characteristic for any of them? Oh, yeah, there’s one character I could do that with: Jar Jar Binks puke.

Ugh. I have always been one of the hugest Star Wars fans imaginable. I STILL have almost every toy ever made, including the original large dolls (would love to get my hands on an original large IG-88 or the Boba Fett with the launching back rocket). I can only imagine that more bad is going to come from this. Whoever owns the rights to this should do the right thing and not ever sell them to anyone or make another movie again until they figure out how to resurrect Akira Kurosawa to do the direction.
[/quote]

I think this is the review you are talking about. I recommend watching the reviews for all 3 prequels, they are really good.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/[/quote]

That’s exactly it, Dr. Matt. Thanks!

86

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

Actually, the LOTR fits perfectly with the heroes journey/ monomyth archetypes described by Joeseph Campbell and used by Lucas to create the OT. [/quote]

I never said it didn’t. First, I don’t know who Joseph Campbell is, and second I said that the OT and LOTR followed the same general outline that many other sci-fi and fantasy stories follow, which is the same thing that you talked about. What makes them separate and unique is the specifics of each story, and in that way they are two different and original stories. If following the same general template made them the same, then there has not really been an original fantasy story in centuries, maybe longer.
[/quote]

You also said that they aren’t really the same story, and as I said in my last post, you don’t need exact counterparts in two stories for them to be the same. You can look at them structurally or superficially. If you compare them on a surface level of course you could say they aren’t the same story when there are no Wookies in LOTR and no Hobbits in Star Wars (unless you count jawas).

What LOTR and Star Wars have in common is athat they were both based on a mythic pattern which is thousands of years old and is the basis for myths and legends from all over the world and span many civilizations and religions.

That’s the focus of Campbell’s work, and yes, many people other than Campbell believe that all stories conform to just three types: Campbell’s focus though, is on patterns throughout mythology.

Star Wars and LOTR are examples of modern mythology. Tolkien sought to create a grand mythology drawing on the power of its mythic predecessors, and so did Lucas. The monomyth has existed in various forms since ancient Sumeria and Gilgamesh. Clearly not all stories conform to monomyth, though, so not all stories can be broken down like that.

Point being, there are far more structural similarities between the two than superficial differences.

87

[quote]Nards wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
The prequels for whatever reason deviated entirely from the heroes journey stuff that he learned in his mythology classes into whatever the hell it turned into.
[/quote]

Three main reasons why the prequels failed:

By then George Lucas was rich enough to fund eps 1-3 without any outside help. That meant he could commit anything his imagination could dream up - good or bad - to film.

The original trilogy actually benefitted from financial and technological limitations: ILM had more creative input then and it showed.

Lucas writes the corniest dialogue (Harrison Ford once commented: “George, you can write this shit, but you can’t say it”) and he had a reputation for being a hands-off director, just letting his actors do whatever (not a great combo when acting against a green screen).

Tied into all this was Lucas’ baffling decision to direct and write all three movies. I still wonder how the prequels would’ve turned out if Spielberg had directed and Lucas just produced, Indy style.

Anakin wasn’t a hero so Lucas couldn’t follow Campbell’s template this time. Lucas tried his best though, but Anakin/ Vader ended up looking like Palpatine’s bitch, not a victim of fate.

There are more, but that’s enough to sink a franchise…[/quote]

Yeah, me and a buddy turned to each other after seeing the Lapti Nek dance scene in the Return of the Jedi Special Edition and later said “If that’s really Lucas’s vision then maybe we don’t want to see it”

It seems like Star Wars owed much of its success and appeal to people other than Lucas. Apparently Richard Chiew, the editor edited the fottage he had to a millimeter of its life to make the movie look good.[/quote]

He lost a lot of respect by releasing only the Special Editions on DVD. The untouched versions might not have been the movies HE wanted to be remembered for, but the people who made him rich enough to fuck with the OT in the first place deserve the choice.

Most of the truly iconic stuff in Star Wars are other people’s ideas, like the lightsaber sounds (a cheap effect made by waving a microphone across an amp to create feedback). Seems trivial, but hugely influential on pop culture.
[/quote]

He did release the untouched ones on DVD surprisingly. In 2004 I think. I bought them. They came with the Special Editions too, as in two discs for each movie.[/quote]

I stand corrected, then.

88

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
The prequels for whatever reason deviated entirely from the heroes journey stuff that he learned in his mythology classes into whatever the hell it turned into.
[/quote]

Three main reasons why the prequels failed:

By then George Lucas was rich enough to fund eps 1-3 without any outside help. That meant he could commit anything his imagination could dream up - good or bad - to film.

The original trilogy actually benefitted from financial and technological limitations: ILM had more creative input then and it showed.

Lucas writes the corniest dialogue (Harrison Ford once commented: “George, you can write this shit, but you can’t say it”) and he had a reputation for being a hands-off director, just letting his actors do whatever (not a great combo when acting against a green screen).

Tied into all this was Lucas’ baffling decision to direct and write all three movies. I still wonder how the prequels would’ve turned out if Spielberg had directed and Lucas just produced, Indy style.

Anakin wasn’t a hero so Lucas couldn’t follow Campbell’s template this time. Lucas tried his best though, but Anakin/ Vader ended up looking like Palpatine’s bitch, not a victim of fate.

There are more, but that’s enough to sink a franchise…[/quote]

Yeah, me and a buddy turned to each other after seeing the Lapti Nek dance scene in the Return of the Jedi Special Edition and later said “If that’s really Lucas’s vision then maybe we don’t want to see it”

It seems like Star Wars owed much of its success and appeal to people other than Lucas. Apparently Richard Chiew, the editor edited the fottage he had to a millimeter of its life to make the movie look good.[/quote]

He lost a lot of respect by releasing only the Special Editions on DVD. The untouched versions might not have been the movies HE wanted to be remembered for, but the people who made him rich enough to fuck with the OT in the first place deserve the choice.

Most of the truly iconic stuff in Star Wars are other people’s ideas, like the lightsaber sounds (a cheap effect made by waving a microphone across an amp to create feedback). Seems trivial, but hugely influential on pop culture.
[/quote]

He did release the untouched ones on DVD surprisingly. In 2004 I think. I bought them. They came with the Special Editions too, as in two discs for each movie.[/quote]

I stand corrected, then. [/quote]

I’ll bet you were sitting when you typed that.

89

[quote]super saiyan wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Nards wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
The prequels for whatever reason deviated entirely from the heroes journey stuff that he learned in his mythology classes into whatever the hell it turned into.
[/quote]

Three main reasons why the prequels failed:

By then George Lucas was rich enough to fund eps 1-3 without any outside help. That meant he could commit anything his imagination could dream up - good or bad - to film.

The original trilogy actually benefitted from financial and technological limitations: ILM had more creative input then and it showed.

Lucas writes the corniest dialogue (Harrison Ford once commented: “George, you can write this shit, but you can’t say it”) and he had a reputation for being a hands-off director, just letting his actors do whatever (not a great combo when acting against a green screen).

Tied into all this was Lucas’ baffling decision to direct and write all three movies. I still wonder how the prequels would’ve turned out if Spielberg had directed and Lucas just produced, Indy style.

Anakin wasn’t a hero so Lucas couldn’t follow Campbell’s template this time. Lucas tried his best though, but Anakin/ Vader ended up looking like Palpatine’s bitch, not a victim of fate.

There are more, but that’s enough to sink a franchise…[/quote]

Yeah, me and a buddy turned to each other after seeing the Lapti Nek dance scene in the Return of the Jedi Special Edition and later said “If that’s really Lucas’s vision then maybe we don’t want to see it”

It seems like Star Wars owed much of its success and appeal to people other than Lucas. Apparently Richard Chiew, the editor edited the fottage he had to a millimeter of its life to make the movie look good.[/quote]

He lost a lot of respect by releasing only the Special Editions on DVD. The untouched versions might not have been the movies HE wanted to be remembered for, but the people who made him rich enough to fuck with the OT in the first place deserve the choice.

Most of the truly iconic stuff in Star Wars are other people’s ideas, like the lightsaber sounds (a cheap effect made by waving a microphone across an amp to create feedback). Seems trivial, but hugely influential on pop culture.
[/quote]

He did release the untouched ones on DVD surprisingly. In 2004 I think. I bought them. They came with the Special Editions too, as in two discs for each movie.[/quote]

I stand corrected, then. [/quote]

I’ll bet you were sitting when you typed that.[/quote]

Kind of half way between sitting and standing, posting on a lap top on my couch, in a sort of couch crouch.

90

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I’m a huge Star Wars fan and all that, but REALLY??? George Lucas sold Lucasfilm, Ltd. for $4.05 billion and now motherfucking DISNEY is going to make Episodes 7, 8, 9? And then they plan on releasing another Star Wars film every few years, like James Bond or some shit.

George Lucas is the king of milking something for all it’s worth and then some. Whaddya guys think? Is there ANY way at all that these films will have any redeeming features? I thought Revenge of the Sith had its moments, but other than that Lucas has fucked up every single second of every single Star Wars film starting about halfway through Return of the Jedi when those goddamned Ewoks showed up.

They should have raped Leia, that little fucking tart.[/quote]

(*posting off the cuff without reading anything but the OP first, so my apologies if anything has been covered already)

I knew we could find common ground on something.

Biggest problem with episodes 1, 2 and 3 was, well, aside from the last 10 minutes or so of episode three, that they possessed NONE of the qualities that made 4, 5 and 6 so damned good. In particular, characterization, characterization, characterization.

I saw a terrific write-up by somebody on the interwebz somewhere about this glaring difference. The guy first asked a few people to describe certain characters like, for example, Han Solo (who shot Greedo first in the original!). Easily done, right? He’s a brave, rugged, go-it-alone type, a Don Juan with a mean narcissistic streak. He looks out for number one most of the time, but has a strong moral core that keeps him grounded, and is still willing to put his life on the line to save his friends.

Now try the same exercise with any given character from 1,2,or 3. Queen Amidala? She’s uhh…good with makeup and curlers? Any of the Jedi? I recall Annakin had good driving skills. Can you remember one real standout characteristic for any of them? Oh, yeah, there’s one character I could do that with: Jar Jar Binks puke.

Ugh. I have always been one of the hugest Star Wars fans imaginable. I STILL have almost every toy ever made, including the original large dolls (would love to get my hands on an original large IG-88 or the Boba Fett with the launching back rocket). I can only imagine that more bad is going to come from this. Whoever owns the rights to this should do the right thing and not ever sell them to anyone or make another movie again until they figure out how to resurrect Akira Kurosawa to do the direction.
[/quote]

I think this is the review you are talking about. I recommend watching the reviews for all 3 prequels, they are really good.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/[/quote]

Does Star Wars = Lord of the Rings in Space?

[/quote]

Not really. The OT and LOTR both follow the general template that work so well in the fantasy/sci-fi genre, but the specifics of the stories are mostly different. Plus, there is no incest in LOTR. You have the inexperienced, unprepared, and generally naive protagonist: Luke in Star Wars and Frodo in LOTR. Actually, all of the hobbit characters have these qualities, but Frodo is definitely the main protagonist. That protagonist is, usually accidentally, thrown into an overwhelming conflict against a massive evil force that he/she does not understand but, through a big heart and lots of courage, endeavors to resolve. They collect a group of more experienced comrades who help them achieve their goals, but ultimately the final resolution of the conflict is up to them. You look at most great sci-fi/fantasy story (Terminator, King Arthur, Flash Gordon, John Carter) and you will see a similar general outline.

There is a good reason this is such a successful plot device for stories like this. Characters like Luke and Frodo are fairly ordinary and thus relatable. It is hard to relate to a powerful wizard, a space monkey, a swashbuckling criminal, or a ranger that descends from kings and is nearly a hundred years old. We easily find these characters very interesting and care about to them to an extent, but not as much as a normal guy like Luke or Frodo. In a situation like LOTR or Star Wars, I would not be a Gandalf, Aragorn, Han, Chewie, or Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am not a great warrior, or royalty. I would be Frodo, or Luke. Watching them succeed in that situation implies that I may be able to as well, and thus I am much more invested in what happens to them more then any other character.

Now, I think that each of these stories work very well in their original medium. Star Wars were much better movies then LOTR, and LOTR were much better books then the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy. The reason for this is obvious: those were the media for which those stories were intended. In a book, it is good to have more diverging story lines that are interconnected in a fairly complex way. This prevents any one story line from getting stale and keeps the reader engaged. It is also great for character development. This does not transfer well to movies because of time constraints. Too many of the intricacies of LOTR had to, by necessity, be cut from the movies to prevent the movies from being over 10 hours long each. There were just too many story lines and chaacters that even with cutting out or glossing over a lot of material, it made for haphazard and hard to follow cinema.

The Star Wars trilogy, however, were written for the limited time frame involved with movies so it was understood from the beginning that the number of characters being developed and the total number of diverging story lines needed to be kept to a minimum, and the specific plot had to be much more condensed then what is more appropriate for a book. This allowed for a more detailed development of the protagonist and interesting side plots while still having a full resolution to the main conflict of the story. This also makes for fairly bad reading material. As a book, Star Wars is a little too simplistic and the characters are not nearly developed to the extent that they should be. In fact, if you look at the page count of the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy and the LOTR trilogy, I would bet that the page count of LOTR is at least double or triple that of Star Wars.

[/quote]
There’s incest to a degree. Aragorn is a descendant of Elros and Arwen is Elrond’s daughter. As we all know Elros and Elrond were brothers. Therefore Arwen is Aragorn’s great aunt and they banged. Luke and Leia never banged thus making LOTR’s the more incest filled tale.

91

[quote]sardines12 wrote:

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I’m a huge Star Wars fan and all that, but REALLY??? George Lucas sold Lucasfilm, Ltd. for $4.05 billion and now motherfucking DISNEY is going to make Episodes 7, 8, 9? And then they plan on releasing another Star Wars film every few years, like James Bond or some shit.

George Lucas is the king of milking something for all it’s worth and then some. Whaddya guys think? Is there ANY way at all that these films will have any redeeming features? I thought Revenge of the Sith had its moments, but other than that Lucas has fucked up every single second of every single Star Wars film starting about halfway through Return of the Jedi when those goddamned Ewoks showed up.

They should have raped Leia, that little fucking tart.[/quote]

(*posting off the cuff without reading anything but the OP first, so my apologies if anything has been covered already)

I knew we could find common ground on something.

Biggest problem with episodes 1, 2 and 3 was, well, aside from the last 10 minutes or so of episode three, that they possessed NONE of the qualities that made 4, 5 and 6 so damned good. In particular, characterization, characterization, characterization.

I saw a terrific write-up by somebody on the interwebz somewhere about this glaring difference. The guy first asked a few people to describe certain characters like, for example, Han Solo (who shot Greedo first in the original!). Easily done, right? He’s a brave, rugged, go-it-alone type, a Don Juan with a mean narcissistic streak. He looks out for number one most of the time, but has a strong moral core that keeps him grounded, and is still willing to put his life on the line to save his friends.

Now try the same exercise with any given character from 1,2,or 3. Queen Amidala? She’s uhh…good with makeup and curlers? Any of the Jedi? I recall Annakin had good driving skills. Can you remember one real standout characteristic for any of them? Oh, yeah, there’s one character I could do that with: Jar Jar Binks puke.

Ugh. I have always been one of the hugest Star Wars fans imaginable. I STILL have almost every toy ever made, including the original large dolls (would love to get my hands on an original large IG-88 or the Boba Fett with the launching back rocket). I can only imagine that more bad is going to come from this. Whoever owns the rights to this should do the right thing and not ever sell them to anyone or make another movie again until they figure out how to resurrect Akira Kurosawa to do the direction.
[/quote]

I think this is the review you are talking about. I recommend watching the reviews for all 3 prequels, they are really good.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/[/quote]

Does Star Wars = Lord of the Rings in Space?

[/quote]

Not really. The OT and LOTR both follow the general template that work so well in the fantasy/sci-fi genre, but the specifics of the stories are mostly different. Plus, there is no incest in LOTR. You have the inexperienced, unprepared, and generally naive protagonist: Luke in Star Wars and Frodo in LOTR. Actually, all of the hobbit characters have these qualities, but Frodo is definitely the main protagonist. That protagonist is, usually accidentally, thrown into an overwhelming conflict against a massive evil force that he/she does not understand but, through a big heart and lots of courage, endeavors to resolve. They collect a group of more experienced comrades who help them achieve their goals, but ultimately the final resolution of the conflict is up to them. You look at most great sci-fi/fantasy story (Terminator, King Arthur, Flash Gordon, John Carter) and you will see a similar general outline.

There is a good reason this is such a successful plot device for stories like this. Characters like Luke and Frodo are fairly ordinary and thus relatable. It is hard to relate to a powerful wizard, a space monkey, a swashbuckling criminal, or a ranger that descends from kings and is nearly a hundred years old. We easily find these characters very interesting and care about to them to an extent, but not as much as a normal guy like Luke or Frodo. In a situation like LOTR or Star Wars, I would not be a Gandalf, Aragorn, Han, Chewie, or Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am not a great warrior, or royalty. I would be Frodo, or Luke. Watching them succeed in that situation implies that I may be able to as well, and thus I am much more invested in what happens to them more then any other character.

Now, I think that each of these stories work very well in their original medium. Star Wars were much better movies then LOTR, and LOTR were much better books then the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy. The reason for this is obvious: those were the media for which those stories were intended. In a book, it is good to have more diverging story lines that are interconnected in a fairly complex way. This prevents any one story line from getting stale and keeps the reader engaged. It is also great for character development. This does not transfer well to movies because of time constraints. Too many of the intricacies of LOTR had to, by necessity, be cut from the movies to prevent the movies from being over 10 hours long each. There were just too many story lines and chaacters that even with cutting out or glossing over a lot of material, it made for haphazard and hard to follow cinema.

The Star Wars trilogy, however, were written for the limited time frame involved with movies so it was understood from the beginning that the number of characters being developed and the total number of diverging story lines needed to be kept to a minimum, and the specific plot had to be much more condensed then what is more appropriate for a book. This allowed for a more detailed development of the protagonist and interesting side plots while still having a full resolution to the main conflict of the story. This also makes for fairly bad reading material. As a book, Star Wars is a little too simplistic and the characters are not nearly developed to the extent that they should be. In fact, if you look at the page count of the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy and the LOTR trilogy, I would bet that the page count of LOTR is at least double or triple that of Star Wars.

[/quote]
There’s incest to a degree. Aragorn is a descendant of Elros and Arwen is Elrond’s daughter. As we all know Elros and Elrond were brothers. Therefore Arwen is Aragorn’s great aunt and they banged. Luke and Leia never banged thus making LOTR’s the more incest filled tale. [/quote]

Aragorns line is a sideline from Elros`s line if I remember correcly and thus makes Arwen not his aunt, but more like a disstant cousine or something. though if she was his aunt she would be his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great aunt etc considering Elronds borther lived in the beginning of the second era and Aragorn living in the end of the third era.

( I understand you where being funny, but the Arda nerd inside me got the best of me LOL )

92

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]sardines12 wrote:

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]roybot wrote:

[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I’m a huge Star Wars fan and all that, but REALLY??? George Lucas sold Lucasfilm, Ltd. for $4.05 billion and now motherfucking DISNEY is going to make Episodes 7, 8, 9? And then they plan on releasing another Star Wars film every few years, like James Bond or some shit.

George Lucas is the king of milking something for all it’s worth and then some. Whaddya guys think? Is there ANY way at all that these films will have any redeeming features? I thought Revenge of the Sith had its moments, but other than that Lucas has fucked up every single second of every single Star Wars film starting about halfway through Return of the Jedi when those goddamned Ewoks showed up.

They should have raped Leia, that little fucking tart.[/quote]

(*posting off the cuff without reading anything but the OP first, so my apologies if anything has been covered already)

I knew we could find common ground on something.

Biggest problem with episodes 1, 2 and 3 was, well, aside from the last 10 minutes or so of episode three, that they possessed NONE of the qualities that made 4, 5 and 6 so damned good. In particular, characterization, characterization, characterization.

I saw a terrific write-up by somebody on the interwebz somewhere about this glaring difference. The guy first asked a few people to describe certain characters like, for example, Han Solo (who shot Greedo first in the original!). Easily done, right? He’s a brave, rugged, go-it-alone type, a Don Juan with a mean narcissistic streak. He looks out for number one most of the time, but has a strong moral core that keeps him grounded, and is still willing to put his life on the line to save his friends.

Now try the same exercise with any given character from 1,2,or 3. Queen Amidala? She’s uhh…good with makeup and curlers? Any of the Jedi? I recall Annakin had good driving skills. Can you remember one real standout characteristic for any of them? Oh, yeah, there’s one character I could do that with: Jar Jar Binks puke.

Ugh. I have always been one of the hugest Star Wars fans imaginable. I STILL have almost every toy ever made, including the original large dolls (would love to get my hands on an original large IG-88 or the Boba Fett with the launching back rocket). I can only imagine that more bad is going to come from this. Whoever owns the rights to this should do the right thing and not ever sell them to anyone or make another movie again until they figure out how to resurrect Akira Kurosawa to do the direction.
[/quote]

I think this is the review you are talking about. I recommend watching the reviews for all 3 prequels, they are really good.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/[/quote]

Does Star Wars = Lord of the Rings in Space?

[/quote]

Not really. The OT and LOTR both follow the general template that work so well in the fantasy/sci-fi genre, but the specifics of the stories are mostly different. Plus, there is no incest in LOTR. You have the inexperienced, unprepared, and generally naive protagonist: Luke in Star Wars and Frodo in LOTR. Actually, all of the hobbit characters have these qualities, but Frodo is definitely the main protagonist. That protagonist is, usually accidentally, thrown into an overwhelming conflict against a massive evil force that he/she does not understand but, through a big heart and lots of courage, endeavors to resolve. They collect a group of more experienced comrades who help them achieve their goals, but ultimately the final resolution of the conflict is up to them. You look at most great sci-fi/fantasy story (Terminator, King Arthur, Flash Gordon, John Carter) and you will see a similar general outline.

There is a good reason this is such a successful plot device for stories like this. Characters like Luke and Frodo are fairly ordinary and thus relatable. It is hard to relate to a powerful wizard, a space monkey, a swashbuckling criminal, or a ranger that descends from kings and is nearly a hundred years old. We easily find these characters very interesting and care about to them to an extent, but not as much as a normal guy like Luke or Frodo. In a situation like LOTR or Star Wars, I would not be a Gandalf, Aragorn, Han, Chewie, or Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am not a great warrior, or royalty. I would be Frodo, or Luke. Watching them succeed in that situation implies that I may be able to as well, and thus I am much more invested in what happens to them more then any other character.

Now, I think that each of these stories work very well in their original medium. Star Wars were much better movies then LOTR, and LOTR were much better books then the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy. The reason for this is obvious: those were the media for which those stories were intended. In a book, it is good to have more diverging story lines that are interconnected in a fairly complex way. This prevents any one story line from getting stale and keeps the reader engaged. It is also great for character development. This does not transfer well to movies because of time constraints. Too many of the intricacies of LOTR had to, by necessity, be cut from the movies to prevent the movies from being over 10 hours long each. There were just too many story lines and chaacters that even with cutting out or glossing over a lot of material, it made for haphazard and hard to follow cinema.

The Star Wars trilogy, however, were written for the limited time frame involved with movies so it was understood from the beginning that the number of characters being developed and the total number of diverging story lines needed to be kept to a minimum, and the specific plot had to be much more condensed then what is more appropriate for a book. This allowed for a more detailed development of the protagonist and interesting side plots while still having a full resolution to the main conflict of the story. This also makes for fairly bad reading material. As a book, Star Wars is a little too simplistic and the characters are not nearly developed to the extent that they should be. In fact, if you look at the page count of the novelization of the Star Wars trilogy and the LOTR trilogy, I would bet that the page count of LOTR is at least double or triple that of Star Wars.

[/quote]
There’s incest to a degree. Aragorn is a descendant of Elros and Arwen is Elrond’s daughter. As we all know Elros and Elrond were brothers. Therefore Arwen is Aragorn’s great aunt and they banged. Luke and Leia never banged thus making LOTR’s the more incest filled tale. [/quote]

Aragorns line is a sideline from Elros`s line if I remember correcly and thus makes Arwen not his aunt, but more like a disstant cousine or something. though if she was his aunt she would be his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great aunt etc considering Elronds borther lived in the beginning of the second era and Aragorn living in the end of the third era.

( I understand you where being funny, but the Arda nerd inside me got the best of me LOL )
[/quote]
They’re actually first cousins twice removed, and there are 64 generations separating them. Still Arwen is a pedophile although a hot pedophile because she is liv tyler, anywho incest and pedophilia compared to two siblings kissing when they didn’t know they were related. I think we know which story is more fucked up.